New England Emigrant Aid Company
The New England Emigrant Aid Company is a company which operated the settlement of the Kansas Territory, and later the U.S. state of Kansas. The company was financed through shares, acquired land in Kansas and sold it to emigrants from Europe. The Company also provided for transport to Kansas and first accommodation in hotels.
Formation
The company was founded in 1854 under the name of the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company and renamed in 1855 in the New England Emigrant Aid Company. Founders were politicians Eli Thayer (Member of the U.S. House of Representatives 1857-61 ), Alexander Hamilton Bullock (judges, governor of Massachusetts 1866-69 ) and the author Edward Everett Hale. The Company's financing was through the sale of shares to $ 20, which originally $ 5,000,000 should be collected. But capital never reached more than $ 140,000. At the launch of the company was the opening of the Kansas Territory for settlers by the Kansas - Nebraska Act of 1854. Abolitionists in Massachusetts now wanted to make sure that abolitionists constituted the majority of residents in Kansas and decided therefore, the settlement of abolitionist set emigrants from Europe to promote what was true for many German. Other organizations also moved to Kansas in German, for example, the German - Neusiedlungsverein, who founded the city in the east of Eudora Kansas.
Activities
The first group of settlers consisted of 170 settlers and reached Kansas City in July 1854, from where they traveled further west. A short time later founded some of these settlers at the mouth of the Wakarusa River in the Kansas River, the city Lawrence. In the year 1855 900 settlers arrived by the New England Emigrant Aid Company to Kansas. By the end of the main activities of the company in 1857 there were about 2,000 settlers, less than 10 percent of the total population of the Kansas Territory at that time.
The New England Emigrant Aid Company formally existed until 1897, when she wrote to her fortune to the University of Kansas. The company had at this time 400 members and had about 1,000 immigrants settled in Florida, the company was influential through the settlement of abolitionists and foundations of cities Lawrence, Manhattan, Topeka and Osawatomie. However, the total number of Ange Settled remained low and the company was financially not a success.
Traces in Kansas
In addition to the established cities, the New England Emigrant Aid Company left other traces. In Lawrence, there is still the built by the company Free State Hotel (now the Eldridge Hotel) and the city itself was named by the Secretary of the Company Amos Adams Lawrence. In Lawrence, there is also Mount Oread (the hill that houses the core of the campus of the University of Kansas ). This hill is named after the Oread Institute College in Massachusetts, which was founded by the well-known patron of Amos Lawrence, the father of Amos Adams Lawrence. Agents of the New England Emigrant Aid Company also took important positions in Kansas, eg the first governor (Charles Robinson ), a Senator ( Samuel C. Pomeroy ) and a delegate in the U.S. House of Representatives ( Martin F. Conway ).